Monopolizing Fortunes (195)
Monopolizing Fortunes (195)
"Didn't you wipe out the bandits who'd been tormenting our village?"
"That doesn't seem to be all of it, though?"
Cheon Du-bong grabbed hold of a branch and climbed the steep slope.
"Actually, if you do go into Ascension Cave, there's something I'd like to ask of you."
"A favor, you say......?"
"If Hanmu's father's remains happen to be inside, please bring them out."
Cheon Du-bong continued with a deep sigh.
"It's largely my fault that Hanmu's father went into Ascension Cave. We made a bet while we were drinking, and......"
"So he didn't come because of ascension to immortality."
"He was a friend who didn't even believe any of it was real."
"Understood. If they're there, I'll recover them and come out."
Cheon Du-bong's face brightened a little.
"It should be around here somewhere."
This time it didn't take long. A rock that looked exactly like a roaring tiger served as a landmark.
Cheon Du-bong rummaged around beside the tiger rock, then stepped back.
"Take a look at this."
Where his finger pointed, a hole nearly two ja in diameter had been bored.
"It's an air hole of Ascension Cave."
"An air hole?"
"If you drop something in here, it falls into Ascension Cave. It's too small for a person to enter, but it's plenty big enough to put provisions through. Would you like to see?"
Cheon Du-bong picked up a fairly large stone and tossed it into the hole. The clattering sound of the stone rolling down the slanted slope went on for a long while.
It seemed to descend nearly a hundred jang. Then, at last, came a thunk.
"The stone I just threw has now landed inside Ascension Cave."
"No one's ever gone in, yet you know all this in remarkable detail."
"Fewer people believe in it nowadays, but back in my grandfather's day there were far more who believed in ascension to immortality. Some even left the village saying they were actually going in. Of course, not one of those who went in ever came back."
"So how did the legend of ascension to immortality come about?"
"I don't know the exact time, but they say that two or three hundred years ago, a streak of blue light shot up into the sky from here. It probably came out of this air hole. It was so auspicious that everyone believed it."
It was too detailed to dismiss as mere legend, yet too fantastical to accept as fact.
"So if I were to do closed-door training in Ascension Cave, you'd drop food down here for me?"
"Of course. We may be a slash-and-burn farming village, but we live comfortably enough, so we can manage to provide for one hero. You rid us of the bandits, so we ought to do at least that much."
"It won't be just a day or two......"
"I'll deliver it once a day, without fail, until you come out."
If Cheon Du-bong kept his word, this was as good a place for closed-door training as any.
"Understood. Let's go in first."
Do Tong-dal left Cheon Du-bong outside and entered the cave alone. That way was faster and easier.
He stripped off his clothes in front of the pool, took only the flint-and-steel wrapped in oiled paper, and entered the water. The water was startlingly cold, so he had to draw up his Internal Energy.
The underwater cave was over one jang wide, plenty enough to swim through. The question was how far he would have to swim.
Do Tong-dal could hold his breath for about one ke. So if it went past half a ke, he would have to turn back.
'It won't take half a ke.'
The reason he believed that was because the slash-and-burn villagers who had come here had never returned. If they had needed to hold their breath and swim that long, they would have given up in the underwater cave and gone back.
Do Tong-dal's guess proved right, and well before half a ke had passed, a branching passage heading upward appeared.
After swimming along that passage, Do Tong-dal was soon able to rise above the surface.
The cave was pitch-black, so dark he couldn't see a finger held before his eyes. Once he climbed onto the ground, Do Tong-dal struck the flint-and-steel.
With a hiss, a blue flame bloomed and laboriously pushed back the darkness.
What Do Tong-dal had expected was a space of at most twenty pyeong, with stone pillars hanging like icicles.
But the space where he stood was well over two hundred pyeong, and he could see at least five other caves branching off in all directions.
On top of that, the floor was as flat as an artificial cave, so there was no need to watch his footing.
Do Tong-dal moved the flint-and-steel this way and that, examining Ascension Cave more closely. Then things he hadn't seen before came into view.
Bugs crawling on the walls were common to any cave, and dark-green moss was naturally visible too.
But bones that reflected white when the light touched them were not something one saw every day. Do Tong-dal walked over to where the bones were piled.
'Writing?'
Judging by the amount of bones, this was more than one person. They were stacked neatly, as if someone had deliberately piled them up.
And above the bone pile, writing was visible. From the number of skulls rolling among the bones, Do Tong-dal guessed that four people were tangled together there.
Do Tong-dal shifted his gaze to the characters carved into the cave wall.
"Cheonji muguk eumyang johwa seollin gihwa baeho jacheong......."
At thirty-six characters in total, it was far too short to be an Internal Energy formula. Nor did it have any particular coherent meaning, and it was even less a poem.
After reading aloud through the final four characters, "hyangcheon talin," Do Tong-dal touched the carved characters with his hand.
The writing, patched here and there with moss, was extremely old. If the people who had come here hadn't rubbed it, the moss would have covered it thickly and the characters would have been unreadable.
He had meant to find a suitable cave and do some closed-door training, but somehow he had ended up in this strange place called Ascension Cave.
Do Tong-dal crouched down in front of the bone pile.
"Why did these people die?"
He rummaged through the bones and examined them, but saw no stab wounds or the like. Judging by the state of decay of the clothes they wore, they hadn't died on the same day, but had accumulated over a span of at least several years to several decades.
"Which means the only explanation is that they climbed onto the bone pile themselves and died......"
That couldn't happen unless they had gone mad one after another. Do Tong-dal was at a loss.
There was no worry of being disturbed by uninvited guests, and there was someone to take care of his food. It was a perfect place for closed-door training.
But of all places, that perfect spot was a strange place he couldn't figure out even with his own head.
"Well, shall I try staying here for now?"
In truth, he didn't want to leave without solving this riddle. Do Tong-dal first gathered up the remains at the very top.
It wasn't certain whether these bones belonged to Hanmu's father. But since he would have been the most recent person to enter, the bones at the very top were most likely his, so he collected them.
Clink!
As he wrapped the bones in the clothing, a copper ring fell out and rolled across the ground. Just in case, Do Tong-dal picked up the ring.
The clothes the man had been wearing were badly rotted, but they seemed sturdy enough to hold up through a swim.
Do Tong-dal swam back the way he had come. Cheon Du-bong, who had been waiting outside the cave, greeted him with a delighted face.
"I can't say for certain whether these are Hanmu's father's remains. This is a ring that came from the remains......"
Suddenly Cheon Du-bong burst into tears.
"It's him! This fellow is Hanmu's father, Bok-hyeon! This ring was a wedding gift Bok-hyeon received when he got married! Sob, sob!"
Clutching the rusted copper ring in his hand, Cheon Du-bong repeatedly poured out words of thanks.
"It seems he didn't manage to ascend as an immortal."
He didn't know whether such a thing actually existed, but even if it did, it didn't seem likely that the body of someone who had ascended would be left behind like that.
Cheon Du-bong wiped his tears and smiled bitterly.
"A country bumpkin went in over a simple bet, so it's only natural. But if it's you, hero, who knows."
Do Tong-dal waved his hand.
"I have no interest in ascension to immortality to begin with. I'm just looking for a place where I can be alone quietly. And it seems I've found one."
"But why didn't Bok-hyeon come out of Ascension Cave?"
Do Tong-dal was curious about that too. If it had only been a bet, then going in and coming back out, as Do Tong-dal had done, wasn't all that difficult.
"If I find out, I'll tell you."
Do Tong-dal took a pouch containing fifty nyang of silver from his chest.
"Use this to buy my food."
Cheon Du-bong's mouth fell open when he saw the silver. He had never seen so much silver in his life.
"Th-this is too much! No, I didn't want silver in the first place......!"
"Once I'm in there, nothing is more useless than money anyway."
Do Tong-dal wasn't throwing money around just because he had a lot of it. He knew well that a person's promise was sometimes so meaningless it was almost laughable.
But when money was mixed in, the weight of a promise became startlingly heavy.
With a large sum like fifty nyang, Cheon Du-bong's promise would surely be kept. Do Tong-dal forced the money pouch into Cheon Du-bong's hand and went back into the cave.
Cheon Du-bong shouted after him.
"I'll start sending food down from today!"
He had a feeling, a feeling that a feast would be laid out for him. The moment Do Tong-dal returned to Ascension Cave and set foot on the ground, he sensed a strange energy.
Inside Ascension Cave, which had been cold as a sheet of ice, a warm heat now lingered. Do Tong-dal first lit the flint-and-steel and looked around.
Nothing had changed since he had left. The thought 'Was I imagining it?' crossed his mind, but the warmth still touching his skin was definitely no illusion.
Do Tong-dal followed the warmth. Finding the source of the heat wasn't difficult.
About one jang from the wall where the characters were carved, the floor was covered with dried-out moss.
The floor should have been damp with moisture, but that spot, about three ja in diameter, was bone-dry.
Do Tong-dal cleared away the moss with his hand. It was a bit hot, but the heat was bearable even with his hand resting on it.
"A good place to dry clothes."
Do Tong-dal took off his wet clothes and laid them inside the circle. Soon the clothes dried, and white steam rose in wisps.
He gathered up the bone pile and moved it deeper into the cave on the left. He simply didn't want to keep looking at other people's remains.
Drinking water was plentiful, and for relieving himself he could use one of the five caves. Once he adjusted to the pitch darkness, he could faintly make out his surroundings.
The heat lasted quite a long time, continuing for nearly two shichen.
"A place that even gives off heat so I won't be cold. Perfect for closed-door training."
Perhaps because of that heat, the spot where the warmth came from was as smooth as polished marble. It was the best place to sit and circulate energy.
Do Tong-dal sat down there, thinking, 'I'd better be careful not to burn my asshole.'
The not-yet-cooled heat warmed his buttocks. Do Tong-dal began to operate the Wonhyeong Musang Art.
His true energy rose, and his dantian was just beginning to warm. Then, suddenly, something pierced through him from the crown of his head to the yongcheon acupoint on the sole of his foot.
It felt like being struck by lightning, and also like an ice pick driving through him, yet what he felt was not pain but clarity.
Startled, Do Tong-dal opened his eyes, and the characters on the wall slammed into his vision.
He didn't read them because he wanted to. The thirty-six characters seemed to enter through his eyes and lodge themselves in his mind.
—Cheonji muguk eumyang johwa seollin gihwa baeho jacheong.......
Once the cycle reached "hyangcheon talin," it began again from the start. Do Tong-dal wanted to look away but couldn't. No—he didn't want to look away.
Do Tong-dal placed both hands on his knees, and his back straightened upright. From his mouth, too, the thirty-six characters were murmured.
It was as though the characters entered through his eyes, made one circuit through his body, and then left through his mouth. Each time, he felt refreshed, as if the turbid energy inside his body was being expelled along with the characters.
He forgot the passage of time, and there was no fatigue. Like a fish caught in a fisherman's net, Do Tong-dal was caught in the net of the characters, thrashing as he recited them over and over.
Then he came to his senses. Rather than coming to his senses, it was more that at some point the characters stopped entering his eyes.
This must be what an opium addict felt when cut off from opium. When the characters stopped entering his eyes, Do Tong-dal felt like he was going mad.
"Uaaaah......!"
Do Tong-dal rose from his seat and staggered toward the wall with the characters. His trembling legs looked ready to buckle at any moment.
Do Tong-dal pressed his hand to the wall and groped at the characters.
"Uaaaah...... aaah-uuu......!"
The voice clamoring for the characters, demanding them at once, did not come out as a voice with meaning.
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